No, Not Everything Is Racist But Donald Trump is.

No, Not Everything Is Racist

But Donald Trump is.

By William Saletan

Jan 12, 2018, 4:43 PM

I don’t like to accuse people of racism. That word is used far too often, unjustly, to smear good men and women. It has been thrown at House Speaker Paul Ryan, Sen. John McCain, former Gov. Mitt Romney, and other decent conservatives. It has been attributed to anyone who defends law enforcement or opposes a government program. When everyone on the right is a white nationalist or white supremacist, these terms lose their meaning.

But Donald Trump is a racist. He meets what Ryan himself once called the “textbook definition” of racism. Trump singles out particular ethnic, racial, and religious groups for suspicion. He holds all members of these groups responsible for the misdeeds of other members. He casts aspersions on individuals based on creed and background. And he explicitly advocates discrimination. If these behaviors don’t define bigotry, nothing does.

Let’s give Trump the benefit of the doubt in every case where his conduct could be explained, even implausibly, by something other than prejudice. Housing discrimination by his father’s company? Young Donald wasn’t directly involved. The Central Park Five? He thought they were guilty. Questioning Barack Obama’s birthplace? Trump just wanted to be thorough. His failure to denounce David Duke? Trump couldn’t hear the question. Calling the removal of Confederate statues an attack on “our culture”? He meant we should own our history. Calling Sen. Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas”? He’s being ironic. Hounding NFL players who kneel? He feels strongly about the national anthem.

Set aside all of that, and you’re still left with four patterns that can’t be explained away.

This behavior has continued in office. During an Oval Office meeting last summer, according to the New York Times, Trump complained that Haitians coming to the United States “all have AIDS.” He also warned that people from Nigeria, if they were allowed into our country, would never “go back to their huts.” Six weeks ago, Trump retweeted messages from a hate group, which by their plain language (“Muslim destroys a statue of Virgin Mary!” “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!”) sought to incite anger against all Muslims.

The White House denied the Times report about Haitians and Nigerians. But now there’s confirmation, from a Democratic senator, a Republican senator, and others who attended or were briefed, that Trump made similar remarks in an Oval Office meeting with lawmakers on Thursday. During a back-and-forth about migrants from Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa, Trump fumed: “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” He specifically asked, “Why do we need more Haitians?” He demanded that Congress “take them out” of a list of immigrant populations temporarily allowed to stay in the United States. Instead, he said the United States should accept more people from countries such as Norway.

What Trump is proposing, as sketched in his own tweets, is not a merit-based system. A merit-based system would accept or reject applicants based their own merits. Trump is saying that applicants should be accepted or rejected based on country of origin. He’s saying that the individual should be judged by the group. If you’re Haitian, you’re out.

That’s bigotry. It’s not some left-wing activist’s definition of bigotry. It’s the textbook definition. And while quotas by nationality are common in immigration policy, it’s hard to explain why Trump thinks and talks this way on so many other issues, not just about foreigners but about Americans. He has been doing it for years to every group with whom he doesn’t identify: blacks, Latinos, Muslims, Seventh-day Adventists, Cuban Americans, Mexican Americans, Arab Americans, Korean Americans, and women.

A president who keeps saying bigoted things and pushing bigoted ideas, despite repeated warnings, is a bigot. A party that continues to excuse him is a bigoted party. And a country that accepts him is a bigoted country. Don’t be that party. Don’t be that country.

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